Employer Safety Training: How To Keep People Safe

Keeping workers safe in the workplace requires more than just a set of rules and regulations. The organization’s culture of safety supports each worker and manager as it contributes to excellence in safety outcomes.

Frequently, there lacks communication between safety reps and project teams. Often, the safety rep gets brought onto the project too near the project’s start date for proper planning and collaboration. When the potential issues are identified, or safety reps start asking questions about potential hazards, there is little time to properly implement changes. This results in starting this project with a rushed safety plan, while the safety rep tries to catch up. When the safety pre-planning process engages right from the beginning of the project, communication improves, and so do safety outcomes. 

Training to Mitigate Hazards in the Workplace

The first step to mitigating hazards is to identify what and where the potential dangers exist. Through comprehensive training, employers can educate workers about what types of hazards may exist on their job sites. Once identified, collectively, workers and safety reps determine how to reduce unnecessary risks to tolerable levels. This collaborative approach utilizes the experience of many, instead of imposing the view of one on everyone. With greater collaboration comes increased cooperation, thereby reducing risks.

Safety Builds in Profits, Too

Involving safety reps from the beginning reduces costs because it is always simpler to build in safety systems than add precautions later. When workers receive adequate safety training, it becomes natural to protect themselves and each other. The culture of safety through training then showcases the commitment from management to re-enforce worker attitudes towards worksite safety. 

Pre-planning job site safety reduces the Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR) and Days Away/Restricted or Transfer Rate (DART). Training for workers and ongoing safety program performance reviews create accountability to review what works, and most importantly, evaluate what needs improvement. 

Any organization in a high-risk industry needs to have a core belief in safety as part of the culture. There is clear data that indicates the benefits of various safety programs. And although it may require significant effort to create and maintain the initiatives, worker safety is worth it.